“The last few years have been quite good for the association’s annual meeting and for the Army,” the AUSA president told us, but “I’m very, very worried” about the 2020 budget.

In a massive simulated conflict, the human players adapted rapidly to futuristic technologies and tactics. But their command-and-control software couldn’t keep up.

Pentagon brass universally support the US developing a new generation of conventional intermediate long-range missiles, and the Army is rushing to meet the challenge as the INF Treaty approaches its likely Aug. 2 demise.

The US could develop more than a dozen different land-based weapons for $7 to $12 billion, thinktank CSBA estimates.

“You want to kill a swarm of things — whatever that thing is — lasers are not really a swarm-killing tool. They can kill things fast, but they can’t kill a swarm of things fast enough.”

The Army must take risks to modernize, the Futures Command chief said, and the modernization effort will survive the inevitable failures along the way.

While Congress wrestles with CH-47 cuts, Army leaders are already looking ahead to hard decisions on high tech.

But modernizing the Army will take decades and tough decisions about everything from online propaganda to the National Guard.

To take out Russian and Chinese targets from a thousand miles away, the US Army wants two very different weapons: a hypersonic missile and a giant cannon.

All told, the Army’s investing $57 billion in modernization over five years — but it wants to take time to test new technologies before it commits to them.